I thought this was a good idea. It was not.
Ranking all 32 NFL coaching staffs is an impossible exercise. At least when we rank players, we have exact metrics by which to grade them. With coaches, we have win-loss record, and that's not even a good barometer for coaching talent.
At its core, coaching is an exercise in maximization. The best coaches get great play out of their great players and their good ones, while hiding and minimizing the impact of those who might struggle. It's about optimization on any given Sunday, while keeping a long view on development. While the best coaching jobs in recent years have been done at teams that have (spoiler alert) won a lot of games, similarly impressive work has been done by those making the most out of the bad hands they were dealt.
I tried to not just rank teams on win-loss record or on reputation but consider with which staff I would start my franchise, if given the opportunity to draft any group in the league.
Before we begin, some considerations:
Past performance is a helpful guide, but only to a degree -- and in big samples: We can use defensive coaches to explain this phenomenon. Mike Zimmer and Dan Quinn have coached great defenses over several years -- Quinn a little more recently, but Zimmer certainly had his day. I'm confident both are good defensive coaches because we have a large body of evidence.
But we also know Quinn's defense has struggled with key NFC offenses (see 49ers, San Francisco) in recent history. He is one of the league's longest-tenured and most successful active defensive coaches, but I'm not going to ignore the current state of the NFL and his place in it. Zimmer hasn't coached an NFL defense since 2021, but his scheme matches the current wave in the NFL -- custom blitz packages, simulated pressures, two-deep zone coverages -- a bit better than Quinn's. That gives Zimmer a bump.
Of course, other guys are trying to run a defense that better fits the league meta: Jesse Minter of the Chargers, Anthony Weaver in Miami and Dennard Wilson in Tennessee all are expected to run iterations of the Mike Macdonald D that was so successful in Baltimore last season. Those guys have no experience coordinating NFL defenses, though, so measuring them against Quinn is much, much harder.
If your head coach is an elite offensive playcaller, it really helps. I'd love it if this weren't the case, but it is. I cannot in good faith rank the 49ers and Rams coaching staffs in the middle of the pack simply because of uncertainty and inexperience at the coordinator spots. Kyle Shanahan is just that good; so is Sean McVay. They aren't the only ones: The Dolphins with Mike McDaniel and Packers with Matt LaFleur benefit here. Am I really supposed to knock the Chiefs for having Matt Nagy as their offensive coordinator when Andy Reid makes the impact of that role nominal?
When it came time to split hairs (and there was a lot of hair-splitting in this exercise) I put two teams beside one another and asked myself the hypothetical, "If I were starting a franchise, which staff would I take?" Without fail, that exercise bumped up the staffs that are captained by young, elite offensive minds.
I didn't take special teams into consideration, nor any position coaches (save for a few key exceptions). I wish I could take special teams into consideration, but I simply don't know enough about the third phase of the game to give it an honest effort. Averaging out DVOA rankings and slapping that into my process felt sloppy and cheap. This is especially true because special teams is undergoing such a radical shift this season, as the new kickoff forces coordinators to become more inventive and tactical than ever. A good special teams coordinator will be a big edge, swinging game results.
I'm confident John "Bones" Fassel helps the Cowboys win games, but until I have the same degree of confidence in the impact the other 31 coordinators make, I won't rank them.
Similarly, I don't know enough about each linebacker coach and run game coordinator to include them in the exercise. There are a few non-coordinators tied to the success of the team: Take Jeff Stoutland in Philadelphia or Bill Callahan in Tennessee, the two best offensive line coaches in the league. Both have clearly buoyed the offenses on the teams they've coached, and it's reasonable to expect they'll continue to do so. I used those guys as tiebreakers when needed, but largely tried not to overweigh those few teams with difference-making assistants or position coaches.
In-game decision-making matters. It's 2024. There is no excuse left to manage the clock poorly, or walk into the locker room with timeouts unused (looking at you, Shanahan). There's no excuse to kick field goals on fourth-and-short in the low red area. We have the data! Players are increasingly accepting the change in philosophy. It's time to evolve.
Some head coaches got dinged for losing win probability late in games, and some got bumped for making the right calls. This is not a matter of opinion: The coaches making the smart, aggressive decisions are helping their teams in the long run, and I am rewarding them.
Being good is different from being valuable. There are 94 coaches on this list (no OC in San Francisco, no DC in Tampa Bay), and every single one of them has earned their spot. All are excellent coaches who do 10,000 things well that I don't see or can't measure.
But of the things I can see and measure, a hierarchy must exist. Chargers OC Greg Roman designs a beautiful running game, but that is objectively less valuable than designing a good passing game in the modern NFL. Were this just a ranking of skill as a coach, Roman might be higher than he is. But to win games in the NFL, you can't just be good -- you have to be good at the right stuff.
My perspective on what is valuable is just that: mine. It's subjective and invites disagreement. Your list of 32 coaching staffs will and should be in a different order as you weigh challenges, philosophies, skills and approaches differently. Let's go through every team, from No. 32 to No. 1:
Jump to a team:
ARI | ATL | BAL | BUF | CAR | CHI | CIN
CLE | DAL | DEN | DET | GB | HOU | IND
JAX | KC | LAC | LAR | LV | MIA | MIN
NE | NO | NYG | NYJ | PHI | PIT | SF
SEA | TB | TEN | WSH
32. Las Vegas Raiders
Head coach: Antonio Pierce
Offensive coordinator: Luke Getsy
Defensive coordinator: Patrick Graham
I want to be very clear: I like Patrick Graham. Check my Patrick Graham receipts. I'm in on Graham.
But some team has to be 32 out of 32, even if there's reason for optimism, and that unfortunate title falls on the Raiders. I'm always suspicious of interim-to-head coach promotions. The best success story for an interim promotion in the past 20 years is former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett. Do you really want to be angling for a Jason Garrett arc?
And that's before you look at Pierce's profile. Five years ago, Pierce was the linebackers coach for Arizona State. I don't mind a fast riser at all, but I do think NFL experience -- just spending time on a lot of staffs with a lot of players -- gives coaches the long view and steady hand necessary to run a franchise. It's not that being a long-tenured NFL coach makes you good; it's that even the naturally good coaches need to learn lessons from experience over time. Pierce has yet to accrue those years at the mast.
The Raiders were plucky under Pierce last year -- they went 5-4 after he took over -- but the interim often enjoys an unsustainable emotional boost. It's fun playing for a beloved positional coach or coordinator for a few weeks after the former, often disliked head coach is ousted. But that buff is only temporary, and Pierce is well beyond it now
They tried to give Pierce some handrails on his towering ascent, hiring Marvin Lewis as an assistant head coach. But the inexperience at offensive coordinator worries me -- Luke Getsy had two failed years of building around Justin Fields in Chicago before he joined this staff, and the Bears' offenses of the past few seasons were maddeningly sloppy on the field.
If Pierce can ride the ups-and-downs and grow on the job, I can see him being a good head coach in a few years -- a CEO with a strong culture, like Campbell or Tomlin. But that's a rosy, distant future. My expectations this season are low.
31. Washington Commanders
Head coach: Dan Quinn
Offensive coordinator: Kliff Kingsbury
Defensive coordinator: Joe Whitt Jr.
Listen. This is not good.
Quinn is a players' coach, and he has a system he has run into the ground -- he knows the ins and the outs of it, and he can get it on the field quickly and cleanly. The problem is every good offensive coordinator in the league knows how this defense works -- four down, zone coverages, certain checks against certain formations -- and can find success accordingly. Quinn's "line up and play fast" approach can work with a souped-up roster like the one enjoyed in Dallas, where stars such as Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland could line up and beat the guy across from them. In Washington, where the defensive roster is really thin? The Quinn shtick won't work as easily.
"Jayden Daniels, at the very least, is an offense unto himself."
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) August 20, 2024
On this week's pod, @BenjaminSolak and I discussed what we've seen out of the rookie QB thus far, as well as Commanders OC Kliff Kingsbury....
🎧: https://t.co/lOszPjfOsP
📺: https://t.co/ZrWM4Xafx1 pic.twitter.com/f88bxFx3qE
Now, Kingsbury is a players' coach, and he has a system he's run into the ground -- he knows the ins and the outs of it, and he can get it on the field quickly and cleanly. Are you seeing the issue here? Kingsbury's Air Raid approach far too often leaves his quarterback checking into screens, running pre-snap RPOs or praying a wide receiver wins a one-on-one deep down the field. This offense floundered in Arizona because there wasn't enough multiplicity or deception, much as Quinn's defenses struggle for their simplicity.
I love the vibes in the room -- Quinn, Kliff and Whitt all get along well with the fellas. But schematically, this is as stale of a room as I can remember. Here's hoping they prove me wrong.
30. New England Patriots
Head coach: Jerod Mayo
Offensive coordinator: Alex Van Pelt
Defensive coordinator: DeMarcus Covington
Mayo has held three jobs in this league: Patriots linebacker from 2008 to 2015, Patriots linebackers coach from 2019 to 2023, and now Patriots coach. He has only ever reported to Bill Belichick -- both as a player and as a defensive playcaller, as he was sharing in those headset responsibilities for the past few seasons in New England. As such, there's so much we don't know about him. What sort of leader and communicator will he be? How much will he change in the defensive approach, if anything at all? Does he have a good Rolodex of coordinators and position coaches from outside of the Patriots universe? Of all the new coaches, he's the biggest question mark.
I'm betting on Mayo. I don't think it's an accident the Patriots kept him in the building as Belichick's presumed successor -- they likely know they have a great defensive mind who provides a fresh breath of personality at the helm. What concerns me is his capacity to hire: Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt has been an NFL coach since 2006. The Patriots are the sixth team he has worked for, and this will be his third crack at offensive coordinator. He is as establishment as it gets. That isn't necessarily bad, of course -- Van Pelt has a quarterback-friendly offense, which serves both Jacoby Brissett (who played for Van Pelt in Cleveland) and rookie QB Drake Maye -- but it isn't good, either. New offensive coordinators such as Ryan Grubb, Brad Idzik or Klint Kubiak are much more likely than Van Pelt to bring inventive ideas to the table.
This defensive coaching staff, which retained both Mayo and DeMarcus Covington from last year's group, will put another great defense out on the field. But I'm suspicious of the ceiling here until I see the offense in action.
29. New Orleans Saints
Head coach: Dennis Allen
Offensive coordinator: Klint Kubiak
Defensive coordinator: Joe Woods
Of the many coaches I unfortunately had to stick at the bottom of this ranking, Allen is one of the best. He can really coach a defense, man. While the Saints might not have the defensive personnel they had from a few seasons previous, not many teams play as much man coverage successfully as Allen's Saints, nor do many teams successfully fit so many runs from the same ol' four-down front as Allen's Saints. He can coach the defensive side of the ball. I have no doubt in my mind.
The bad news is this is his second stint as a head coach, and it isn't going much better than the first stint. Allen is now 24-46 as a head coach, and his 9-8 season in 2023 was the first winning season of his career. His defense has fallen off as he has taken over the head-coaching reins, but there has been no offensive bump or shrewd game management in return for the defensive decline.
Perhaps the hiring of offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak will be a job-saving personnel decision, as Kubiak was the passing game coordinator for the San Francisco offense last season. We have seen Kubiak coordinate offense before, in Mike Zimmer's final season as the coach of the Vikings, and he was running the classic Shanahan stuff (which is technically the classic Gary Kubiak stuff, but whatever). Maybe his season under Shanahan in San Francisco will spark some new ideas -- the past two guys to leave the umbrella for playcalling jobs elsewhere were Mike McDaniel and Bobby Slowik. Pretty good!
28. Tennessee Titans
Head coach: Brian Callahan
Offensive coordinator: Nick Holz
Defensive coordinator: Dennard Wilson
High on the list of nerdy fascinations I have entering the 2024 season is the offense Callahan will run in Tennessee. Callahan, who got a lot of shine as the sherpa of the Bengals' offense as they turned Joe Burrow into Peyton Manning, likes a spread-out offense with quick decisions and even quicker releases. In his career under Callahan, Burrow averaged 7.4 air yards per attempt with his time to throw of 2.74 seconds. Last season, Titans quarterback Will Levis? A league-leading 10.3 air yards per attempt with a time to throw of 2.97 seconds.
If Callahan succeeds, he'll have to find a blend between the offense he ran for Burrow and the offense Levis ran last season: tons of screens, tons of deep play-action bombs. The offensive cupboard got loaded with weapons in the offseason -- Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard, Tyler Boyd -- and Levis showed some nice flashes, so a solid Year 1 performance is a reasonable expectation from this offense.
This defense is a different matter. Wilson is one of three new defensive coordinators from the Mike Macdonald tree, and I don't really have any reason to believe in any one over the other. But his secondary background should shine here, where L'Jarius Sneed, Chidobe Awuzie, Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs have all joined a room already featuring a couple of exciting young players in Amani Hooker, Elijah Molden and Roger McCreary (put a star by that last name). The front seven deficiencies beyond Jeffery Simmons are tough to ignore, but Wilson should be able to run some of those crazy Baltimore coverages with this back end.
27. Carolina Panthers
Head coach: Dave Canales
Offensive coordinator: Brad Idzik
Defensive coordinator: Ejiro Evero
The Panthers get the bump over a few all-new staffs because of the retention of defensive coordinator Evero, who I firmly believe is a really solid coach. It was Evero who coordinated the 2022 Broncos defense -- you remember, the unit that was so good at keeping the doomed Russell Wilson offense in games that it started openly revolting against its quarterback? The unit ranked 13th in DVOA.
The 2023 Panthers didn't grade out nearly as well, but of the many Vic Fangio disciples who have crashed and burned on their own, Evero seems to successfully get that complicated defense taught, installed and executed. With Brian Burns and Frankie Luvu both gone in free agency, I don't think the 2024 Panthers are destined for a defensive leap, but Evero deserves a nod as a solid young coordinator.
Canales strikes me as a sharp guy, and I like the way he's talking about resuscitating Bryce Young's career with a 2.7-second offense. Canales and offensive coordinator Brad Idzik cannot bring with them the Baker Mayfield offense they installed in Tampa Bay, however, as Young's skill set (and Carolina's wide receivers room) both demand a different approach. This will largely be a learning year in Carolina, but I have high hopes for Canales as an offensive mind.
26. Seattle Seahawks
Head coach: Mike Macdonald
Offensive coordinator: Ryan Grubb
Defensive coordinator: Aden Durde
Of all the staffs with first-time head coaches, Seattle's is the one I have the most interest in. Macdonald has the goods. He's a renowned communicator and teacher, which is why he can get such a complex, disguise-heavy defense on the field when other NFL coaches struggle to sustain such a system. And that system is perfect for combatting the current meta of league offenses: rushers coming from all angles, but no all-out blitzes for elite quarterbacks to burn. He needs good defensive players to make it all work -- the Seahawks don't have that just yet -- but I believe in his defensive acumen even if this season likely will have some big growing pains.
I really love Macdonald's coordinator decisions. He did not just hire guys he knows, but rather grabbed Aden Durde from Dallas, the schematic polar opposite to Macdonald's defense in Baltimore. What can Durde -- a Middlesex, England, native who was an NFL quality control coach as recently as 2019 -- bring from Dan Quinn's defense and integrate into Macdonald's scheme? I don't know, but the cross-pollination should be interesting.
Mina Kimes joins "NFL Live" to react to the news that Geno Smith's injuries aren't significant and breaks down how the Seahawks' offense can improve.
Similarly, Grubb is a total unknown at the NFL level -- hasn't coached a day in the pros. I tend to be hesitant around career college guys making the NFL leap, but Grubb had a pretty pro-style offense at Washington with a diverse running game, full-field passing concepts and deep drops. Under Grubb, the Huskies hunted easy gains with RPOs and deep downfield when they got clear one-on-ones -- those are two things that are much, much harder to do in the pros than in the college ranks. So, again: I expect growing pains, but don't be surprised if this offense is pretty good at running the football early.
25. Chicago Bears
Head coach: Matt Eberflus
Offensive coordinator: Shane Waldron
Defensive coordinator: Eric Washington
I'd love to be more excited about the Bears coaching staff than I am. The jump the defense took last season was notable, as Eberflus was calling plays for the first time in his tenure, but the improvement had much more to do with personnel additions than any philosophy shift. The Bears were as his defenses have always been: a four-down team playing either Cover 2 or Cover 3 behind. There isn't much in the way of coverage rotation or disguise; there isn't much in the way of blitz packages.
New defensive coordinator Washington is an interesting add. He spent the past four seasons in Buffalo under Sean McDermott and was with McDermott in Carolina, too. Buffalo has been another "rush four, drop seven" team under McDermott, but it started to do some more creative stuff last season. Washington won't call plays, and I don't imagine he has anything revolutionary to add to the system, but outside ideas can always freshen up an old system.
On the offensive side of the ball, I remain intrigued by Waldron, who did some cool stuff in Seattle over his time there (2021-23). Pistol backfields, splitback, multiple-TE sets -- he'll get funky with formations and personnel. I've yet to see how his creative spins on the Sean McVay offense are any better than either the original McVay offense he coached in the late 2010s, or the spins deployed by other offensive minds of that tree over the past few years. Waldron can create easy throws and moving platforms for a rookie quarterback, which is a nice trait, but he can also get far too cute at times for his own good.
Eberflus was billed as a leader and a teacher, and here he is with great personnel, two (more) handpicked coordinators and a gem of a rookie quarterback. My quibbles with the scheme will quickly be forgotten if he gets this plane off the ground.
24. New York Giants
Head coach: Brian Daboll
Offensive coordinator: Mike Kafka
Defensive coordinator: Shane Bowen
There's a chance that this is the ranking I look back on with the most embarrassment in a few months. Brian Daboll won the 2022 Coach of the Year award for somehow finding a half-decent offense in Daniel Jones' pockets, and it's hard to knock him (or offensive coordinator Mike Kafka) too much for a 2023 season derailed by quarterback injuries. Even now, in 2024, the deficiencies in the Giants' offensive personnel should make it easy to defend Daboll if things go haywire.
Daboll and Kafka are more willing than most offensive staffs to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. They have a wide variety of designer plays for key third or fourth downs (of which Daboll goes for many, and often the right ones). I like the analytical lean of this offensive coaching staff, but I can only put so much value in getting the best out of a bad roster. Who has developed as a young Giant during Daboll's tenure? Andrew Thomas, the fourth overall pick? Dexter Lawrence, the 17th overall pick? Slapping together a ramshackle offense for a contract year Jones was nifty, but it's time to find an identity on offense, and I don't think the Giants are anywhere near that yet.
Defensively, Shane Bowen is an appropriate compatriot to Daboll and Kafka -- he loves to try some wacky stuff schematically and see if he can get the drop on opposing coordinators. I think he'll help a thin and young secondary survive for just long enough that Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeaux, and Lawrence can do their jobs in the pass rush.
There's creativity here, but is there consistency?
23. Denver Broncos
Head coach: Sean Payton
Offensive coordinator: Joe Lombardi
Defensive coordinator: Vance Joseph
When Payton returned to the coaching ranks in 2023, I was uncertain how much of his heart would be in it. I was not impressed by the effort last season, but he seems rejuvenated in Year 2, now that Russell Wilson is out of the building and his hand-selected rookie quarterback, Bo Nix, is in.
Payton was a master of offensive football for over a decade with the Saints, and while the game has changed some since the last time he was calling a top offense, it hasn't changed that much. He will inevitably fall behind the millennial whiz kids spamming the Shanahan stuff. What I'm more worried about is dumbing down the Drew Brees-era Saints offense for a rookie passer, even one as experienced as Nix. Payton's offense (of which Joe Lombardi has been a longtime branch) is not known for its easy buttons, and rookies often need those.
Joseph, who is in his third stint as an NFL defensive coordinator, is a veteran and established hand at the helm. Again, much like Payton, he isn't running anything that is "en vogue." Unlike Payton, that actually has been coming back to bite him pretty badly: His past two defenses ranked 26th and 30th in the league, respectively. Joseph needs to figure out some new ideas, and fast.
22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Head coach: Todd Bowles
Offensive coordinator: Liam Coen
Defensive coordinator: none
Can someone get Bowles a game management assistant so I can bump the Buccaneers further up this list? He ended the Bucs' season with a timeout in his pocket, forgoing the chance for a Hail Mary or similar miracle in the divisional round of the playoffs? This is another in a long line of maddening clock management decisions from Bowles, who has actually gotten wiser to the fourth-down gag but still regularly mishandles end-of-half scoring situations to the detriment of his team.
Bowles has coordinated some great defenses in his day, but he has always underwhelmed as a head coach. The 2023 Buccaneers are certainly his biggest success story to date, and if he can weather the departure of Dave Canales (and a few offensive assistants Canales poached) to Carolina, then I'm willing to entertain the chance he has come around the corner as a head guy. But this is always the worry with a defensive head coach: Too much of his success relies on finding a good offensive coordinator, and when he does, that guy is whisked away after just one season.
An interesting candidate here in Coen, who used his Sean McVay connection to get an offensive coordinator job at Kentucky in 2021 (went great, ask Will Levis). In 2022, he took the coordinator job under Sean McVay in Los Angeles (the worst offense of McVay's entire Rams tenure, though they were super injured). Then, in 2023, he went back to Kentucky as the offensive coordinator again (not nearly as good), and now he's Tampa Bay's coordinator.
I don't really know what to do with this information. Coen's most impressive work was adapting the Jared Goff-McVay offense to the college ranks, which is a tricky thing to pull off. But I'm not sure how well his success there predicts his success running an NFL offense for Baker Mayfield, who needs more than just Goff's greatest hits to be successful in Tampa Bay. The real thing that needs fixing in Tampa? The running game. Coen has been a passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach his whole life.
21. Atlanta Falcons
Head coach: Raheem Morris
Offensive coordinator: Zac Robinson
Defensive coordinator: Jimmy Lake
I really didn't know where to put the Falcons. They're ranked far above all the other totally new staffs, which feels correct because Morris is not totally new. Finally granted a second chance at the head gig after an ill-fated opportunity with the 2009 Buccaneers (that was 15 years ago!), I'm thrilled to see what he does. He's as well-traveled a coach as I can think of, both from a schematic and leadership perspective: He was originally a Monte Kiffin Tampa-2 disciple, then spent time under Dan Quinn -- the godfather of Seattle Cover 3 -- before hopping to Los Angeles to run the Vic Fangio scraps that Brandon Staley had left behind. What a medley of influences!
Morris is clearly a great leader and personality and is defensively trilingual, so I'm confident he'll be good for the Falcons. Robinson is a much bigger unknown, though these guys who spend years in the Shanahan/McVay incubator tend to turn out pretty good (see; McDaniel, Mike, and O'Connell, Kevin). The fact Robinson gets to coach Kirk Cousins, the absolute poster child for the Sean McVay offense, should actually help him grow as a coach in Year 1, as Cousins (36) teaches the kid Robinson (37) a few things.
Lake was a Cover 3/Cover 1 guy when he coached defenses for the Washington Huskies -- he was there from 2014 to 2021 -- but I'm not reading too much into his defensive background as a schematic hint for the direction Morris is taking this defense. Lake was Morris' defensive backs coach during Morris' first stint as a coach, and Morris is using his second chance to give Lake a second chance at coaching after things at Washington didn't go well at the end. Never doubt an NFL coaches' willingness to go to bat for their guys.
20. Arizona Cardinals
Head coach: Jonathan Gannon
Offensive coordinator: Drew Petzing
Defensive coordinator: Nick Rallis
If I wanted to be a real football hipster, I'd get the Cardinals higher in these rankings. The names aren't buzzy, but Arizona's coaching staff was making schematic waves on both sides of the ball last season. Petzing used Kyler Murray's mobility in a new way, putting the quarterback under center and running heavy personnel with a big back in James Conner to present a thunder-and-lightning backfield that could still hit teams with a deep play-action shot. Petzing, who was with Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland while they were still running the Gary Kubiak offense, is one of the guys innovating on traditional Shanahan/McVay stuff in a way that feels actually meaningful and new.
Gannon and Rallis, who handle the defensive side of the ball, were so low on talent last season they were grasping for straws structurally. The Cardinals were running three-safety shells and college-style three-down fronts, and while it was largely unsuccessful, it showed a level of creativity and humility Gannon seemingly lacked in Philadelphia, when the Eagles' defense was perilously predictable. Also significant from his time in Philly: Fourth-down aggressiveness has seemingly rubbed off on Gannon, who was going for it with reckless abandon in Year 1. He'll likely tone it down in Year 2, when the Cardinals don't need four lucky breaks to win a game.
Liz Loza makes the case for fantasy managers to draft Kyler Murray this season.
Something else that will be nice for Gannon? Getting one year removed from "Hard Knocks" and another year removed from Murray contract detail drama. When Gannon hired Rallis and Petzing, he was 40, Petzing was 35 and Rallis was 29, the youngest coordinator in the league. This staff was always going to take time, and as they move further away from the upheaval the old guard left behind, it'll become easier for them to grow.
19. New York Jets
Head coach: Robert Saleh
Offensive coordinator: Nathaniel Hackett
Defensive coordinator: Jeff Ulbrich
When I sent the first iteration of my list out for feedback, the only unanimous response I got was "Jets are too high." I knocked 'em down a few pegs, but not too many, and that's because Saleh and Ulbrich are spectacular defensive coaches. Saleh is running the 2.0 version of the Seattle Cover 3 defense he first deployed as the defensive coordinator in San Francisco. It's not a complex defense -- the Jets play a little safer in coverage, both to protect against deep shots and account for not having prime Bobby Wagner -- but it is an effective one when run by a detailed, impassioned defensive mind.
That's Saleh. You need all 11 players on this defense to be hyperspecific in their communication and route recognition, and the Jets are. You need all 11 players on this defense to play at high speed and tackle consistently in space, and the Jets do. And over the past few seasons, specifically for the Jets, they have needed to retain that concentration and intensity despite the fact their offense is repeatedly shooting itself in the foot. That Saleh has kept this defense on task despite the travesty they've endured on offense is nothing short of a miraculous feat.
Now, onto that nightmare of an offense. Saleh deserves blame for not moving on from Zach Wilson sooner -- both as QB1 and as QB2 -- but I can't put too much of that on his plate. The big knock I will deliver is the hiring of Hackett, which was a kowtowing to Aaron Rodgers as the real decision-maker in New York. Hackett is not an imposing offensive mind, and he drags this coaching staff down in my rankings accordingly.
18. Jacksonville Jaguars
Head coach: Doug Pederson
Offensive coordinator: Press Taylor
Defensive coordinator: Ryan Nielsen
Pederson is one of only three head coaches on this list to have won a Super Bowl in the past 10 years. The other two (Andy Reid, Sean McVay) have staffs that are in my top five. Yet here are the Jaguars, all the way down at No. 18.
Pederson hasn't done in Jacksonville much of what made him successful during his early years in Philadelphia (2016-20). He was on the crest of the run-pass option wave then, which made offense simpler for his quarterbacks, but now the Jaguars ask Trevor Lawrence to run a fairly traditional West Coast offense without many of the bells and whistles other quarterbacks get to enjoy. They still run RPOs and use play-action and send players in motion, but nothing is weaponized the way elite offenses do it in today's NFL.
Taylor, who has long been connected to Pederson, has been the subject of offensive frustration. He took over playcalling in 2023 and it looks like he'll keep it in 2024 even though the offense declined in success rate, points per drive and expected points added per play once he manned the headset. Of note was a huge decline on late downs, where Pederson's offenses have typically been excellent: In 2022, the Jaguars ranked ninth in third-down conversion rate and 15th in fourth-down conversion rate. In 2023, they were 17th and 26th, respectively.
I still think Pederson is a good manager of players and has a sound offensive system, but he needs to be more hands-on in reviving this offense -- and he can be. Nielsen, his new defensive coordinator, was one of the pleasant surprises in last year's coaching carousel. As a first-year DC for the Falcons, he got substantial overachievement out of a thin roster. I expect big things in Jacksonville, where he has a bit more talent to work with.
17. Los Angeles Chargers
Head coach: Jim Harbaugh
Offensive coordinator: Greg Roman
Defensive coordinator: Jesse Minter
If we're just ranking head coaches, Jim Harbaugh is probably fringe top 10. But we're not ranking head coaches -- we're ranking entire staffs. Ten of the past 12 years of Roman's NFL employment have been directly under a Harbaugh brother, and he's back for his third stint as a pro coordinator. I acknowledge he is one of the best run-game designers in professional football, and his ability to graft college trends into offenses is nifty. But the limitations of his passing attack in Baltimore were very apparent, both in design and in detail. I have no reason to believe he has tidied up that toothless chapter of his playbook, and I'll adjust my rankings only when I see the change.
Pat McAfee and Darius Butler share their optimism surrounding the Chargers' playoff potential this season under Jim Harbaugh.
Minter is another branch of the Harbaugh tree. He spent four years in Baltimore under John, took a year off from the Harbaughs at Vanderbilt and then spent two seasons at Michigan under Jim. He has a more modern sense of scheme than Roman, and I'm excited to see the iteration of the Mike Macdonald defense he puts on the field. Unlike Roman, though, his NFL experience is limited. Those years in Baltimore will help him, but it will probably take a lot of work for Minter to NFL-ize his defense, which preyed on the pre-snap uncertainty and post-snap lethargy of college quarterbacks. Those guys at the next level are a little smarter.
I can't just wave my hand at Harbaugh's excellent 49ers tenure (2011-14) and say, "The Chargers staff is good." I'm worried the league has caught up to Roman. I'm worried Minter must catch up to the league. And heck: Harbaugh hasn't coached in the NFL in a decade! It's fair to wonder if he'll have to take some lumps, too.
16. Dallas Cowboys
Head coach: Mike McCarthy
Offensive coordinator: Brian Schottenheimer
Defensive coordinator: Mike Zimmer
Do you remember McCarthy's great analytics revolution? The year off coaching he spent grinding the spreadsheets at Pro Football Focus? It wasn't all lip service, it turns out. The Cowboys are one of the league's most pass-happy teams, especially since he took playcalling duties following the dismissal of offensive coordinator Kellen Moore after the 2022 season. McCarthy was also sixth in the league in expected points added gained on fourth-down decisions last season -- he was making the right decision on fourth-down punts, field goals and attempts far more often than he wasn't.
Now, I'm not at all willing to retire the McCarthy memes, as an end-of-half running clock still mystifies the man. (Also, remember the Ezekiel Elliott snap trickeration play in the 2022 postseason? Good times.) But since he became the coach of the Cowboys in 2020, they are a top-five offense in success rate, expected points added per play and points per drive. There has been no huge free agent addition to galvanize the offense either, just a lot of homegrown talent in CeeDee Lamb, Dalton Schultz, Jake Ferguson and Tyler Smith. McCarthy is holding up his side of the offensive bargain -- it's the clock management that's hurting him.
Dallas would have been lower if not for the Zimmer hire. Zimmer is a great defensive coordinator -- he was a pretty good head coach with some bad quarterback luck, but that's a soapbox for another day. Zimmer replaces Dan Quinn, who was another great defensive coach, but philosophically, Zimmer is much better suited for beating those top NFC offenses with which Quinn has typically struggled. San Francisco, Detroit, Green Bay -- they're all chips off the Shanahan/McVay block, which means they're great against a Quinn defense. Zimmer, who mixes up his fronts and his blitzes much more readily than Quinn, should give the Cowboys a new edge in the playoffs against those key opponents, even if the season-long production of his defense is a little worse than Quinn's.
15. Philadelphia Eagles
Head coach: Nick Sirianni
Offensive coordinator: Kellen Moore
Defensive coordinator: Vic Fangio
I have no idea how to rank the Eagles. I shouldn't even be expected to write a blurb about the Eagles. I should just gesticulate wildly at the numerous and detailed reports of coaching dysfunction last season, shrug my shoulders and keep it moving.
I don't know how to credit Sirianni. He's the best fourth-down decision-maker in the league by the numbers, but so much of that success is a credit to the tush push, not any particular genius from the head coach. The complete collapse of the Eagles' offense from the Shane Steichen era to the Brian Johnson experiment indicates to me that Sirianni was not much of a schematic influence on the successful Jalen Hurts offense of 2022. And as a leader, motivator and manager of personalities, the reports from last season are extremely rough.
I don't think Sirianni is completely a stuffed shirt, but figuring out his role alongside these two excellent coordinators is tricky. Fangio had a tough time with the Dolphins' locker room last season, but he was a key voice in the success of the 2022 Eagles defense and remains one of the shrewdest defensive coaches in the league. Some of the shine is off Moore, who interviewed for the Eagles' head-coaching job back in 2021 at the height of his hype. Moore still runs a dangerous, complex offense that presents a lot of stressors for opposing defenses. Is it a great fit for Jalen Hurts' play style? I'm not convinced, but it's still a good system, and Hurts' mobility creates the opportunity for a lot of fresh wrinkles.
I have the Eagles 15th because I'd love to have Fangio calling my defense and Moore calling my offense. A wide range of outcomes is conceivable from this group this season, though. Buckle up!
14. Cincinnati Bengals
Head coach: Zac Taylor
Offensive coordinator: Dan Pitcher
Defensive coordinator: Lou Anarumo
This is an important year for Taylor. He isn't on the hot seat or anything, but Cincinnati's offensive evolution over the past few seasons has been the subject of much scrutiny. The Bengals have been trying for years to blend Joe Burrow's preferred offensive approach -- spread formations, gun, quick reads -- with Taylor's offensive background -- under center, play-action, fewer than five routes in a progression. The results have been mixed, and quick fixes have been deployed midseason to heal slow offensive starts. With longtime coordinator Brian Callahan and running back Joe Mixon out of the building, Tee Higgins approaching his last season as a Bengal, Ja'Marr Chase not yet practicing as he holds in for a new contract and Burrow experimenting with a glove between reps at training camp ... well, Taylor has a lot to figure out for this offense.
The schematic considerations are one thing, but the player management is what really interests me. Can Taylor get Chase into the building without a new contract? How will he manage Chase and Higgins throughout the season if Chase gets the big new deal that Higgins was long pursuing?
I've had my doubts about Taylor, but I thought last season was the best sign for offensive ingenuity that we've seen from his Bengals tenure, so the arrow is pointing up there. On the flip side, I've long been a big believer in Anarumo, who is one of the best defensive coaches against elite quarterbacks -- which is hugely valuable. The Bengals could not figure out how to work around a young secondary last season, as Anarumo's deep and versatile defensive structure overtaxed the recognition and communication of a green safety room. Anarumo must find a way to simplify things when he needs to -- or his defense might never work without Jessie Bates (now a Falcon) at the helm.
13. Cleveland Browns
Head coach: Kevin Stefanski
Offensive coordinator: Ken Dorsey
Defensive coordinator: Jim Schwartz
If I had to guess which fan base will be most upset with me because of these rankings, I'm going with Cleveland. Stefanski is a two-time Coach of the Year, Dorsey's offenses in Buffalo were extremely productive, and Schwartz's 2023 defense speaks for itself.
I'm not sold on the offensive changes Stefanski has deployed over the past couple of seasons, though. He got his first Coach of the Year award for resuscitating Baker Mayfield's career using heavy personnel, big rollouts and play-action passes. Since then, the Browns have increasingly become a spread, shotgun team. It just doesn't work as well. It makes life harder on Nick Chubb, who has been the engine of this offense for years. With longtime offensive line coach Bill Callahan departed for Tennessee, I'm doubly worried about a decline in the running game. That isn't even to mention a drop-off in pass protection -- something particularly concerning with Deshaun Watson at quarterback, as pressure has been hugely destructive to his game during his time in Cleveland.
Stefanski gets credit for working around bad quarterbacks to keep the offense afloat last season, but he hasn't yet found the secret sauce for overcoming Watson's poor play. Dorsey is meant to help the offense in the spread/gun/RPO world, as that's what he ran for Josh Allen in Buffalo, but he wasn't so much of a schematic magician as he was a "let Josh cook" point guard. I can't rank this offensive staff above those that have shown they can do more than buttress QB2s and 3s for a few games.
Schwartz? Very good. Terrifying defensive coordinator. Every defensive coach in the league wishes he had the constitution to line 'em up and dominate with speed and length at every position, but Schwartz laps them all.
12. Buffalo Bills
Head coach: Sean McDermott
Offensive coordinator: Joe Brady
Defensive coordinator: Bobby Babich
I'm buying low on McDermott. He might never get over the playoff hump in a crowded AFC, but the Bills were much more creative on the defensive side of the ball than they had ever been in McDermott's tenure. Necessity was the mother of invention, as a gamut of injuries forced them to find ways to help their young and incomplete players. My hope and suspicion is that Babich, a safety and linebacker coach with Buffalo before his promotion, had a hand in some of the spicier schemes last season, when McDermott was calling plays and nobody officially held the defensive coordinator title.
It is crucial that the Bills get more dynamic on defense, as their rather cautious zone defense of the last few seasons was perennially carved by the elite processors in the AFC playoff picture (Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow -- ever heard of 'em?). It is also crucial that they get more creative on offense, as the departures of wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis have created a huge vacuum in the passing game. Their pass-catching room is far from a traditional build: a spread tight end in Dalton Kincaid, a running back convert in Curtis Samuel, a contested catch fiend in second-round pick Keon Coleman and a quiet little do-it-all in Khalil Shakir. That puts a lot on Brady's plate.
Brady is a good offensive coach who got a massive PR bump (the 2019 LSU Tigers -- ever heard of 'em?). Many of the changes he made to the Bills offense when he took over from Ken Dorsey midseason were overstated in their impact -- a couple more runs a game, a few fewer Diggs targets -- but he does major work in the spread-'n'-shred offense that has typically gotten the best out of Allen. The fit here is nice. I'm more willing to stick a feather in the cap of offensive line coach Aaron Kromer, the quiet agent behind the Bills' steady improvement in the running game over the past two seasons.
11. Indianapolis Colts
Head coach: Shane Steichen
Offensive coordinator: Jim Bob Cooter
Defensive coordinator: Gus Bradley
I'm not willing to call Cooter the best offensive coordinator that nobody talks about, but I'm close. He was one of the only offensive coordinators to get something really special out of Matthew Stafford in Detroit, he was there in Philadelphia when the Eagles figured out how to make Jalen Hurts work, he was in Jacksonville during Trevor Lawrence's best season and now he's in Indianapolis again with Steichen, with whom he worked in Philadelphia.
And this offensive coaching staff just gets it. The way it eked an offense out of Gardner Minshew and Zack Moss last season will never cease to impress me. The Colts are one of only two teams that survive off RPOs (Dolphins), and they're doing it without an absolute track team at wide receiver and running back. The few games we saw of rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson showed development -- he improved week over week, seeing coverages faster and making better decisions -- and creative offense. The Colts were doing single-wing stuff!
Field Yates breaks down the fantasy outlook for Colts QB Anthony Richardson this season.
A word on Steichen as a playcaller: It's a hard thing to measure, but his game sense on the headset seems unique. That 2022 Eagles offense was one of the simplest we've seen in the past few years, running a small quantity of pass concepts. They were basic, but Steichen kept things afloat because he always knew how and when to play the greatest hits and when to pitch his changeup. What he can do with a small menu of plays is reminiscent to what Sean McVay pulled off with Jared Goff in the late 2010s.
Bradley has been a defensive coordinator or head coach in every season since 2009. Think about that! Not a single season off as a senior defensive assistant or recuperating at home. I wish the Colts would modernize on defense. The past four seasons of Bradley's defenses have been the four worst in his career by success rate; offenses have gotten wise to the bit.
10. Minnesota Vikings
Head coach: Kevin O'Connell
Offensive coordinator: Wes Phillips
Defensive coordinator: Brian Flores
I found the Vikings challenging to rank. I want to put O'Connell's name right next to that of Matt LaFleur or Mike McDaniel as an offensive innovator, but I can't honestly say his branch of the McVay/Shanahan offense is as prosperous as those. McDaniel and LaFleur have both modernized the offense for young quarterbacks, moving to the gun and integrating RPOs and motions -- with Kirk Cousins at the helm, O'Connell has stayed committed to under center dropbacks and static offensive looks. I think he made the right decision for his quarterback, and he'll push the boundaries of the offense when J.J. McCarthy finally hits the field. For now, I can't put him in that echelon of offensive playcaller.
If I could, the Vikings would have leapt up the board on the back of Flores, one of the league's best defensive coaches. He is a havoc-wreaker, a madman at the wheel. No team rushed with at least six bodies more than Flores' Vikings last season, which he did on a whopping 26% of dropbacks (the next closest was 11%). And no team sent only three rushers more frequently than Flores' Vikings, which he did in another 20% of opponent dropbacks (next closest was 11%).
Pass rush from anywhere. Aggressive press man coverage that suddenly becomes a blanketing eight-man zone on the next play. Flores takes the fight to opposing coaches, forcing them to respond to his defensive system instead of the other way around -- and offensive coordinators are unaccustomed to being on the back foot. That's how a team without great defensive personnel, like the 2023 Vikings, steals a win against the 49ers or powers the team to a 3-0 victory over the Raiders. No coach last season made more out of less than Flores did with his unit, and it isn't the first time -- his defenses in Miami achieved much of the same during his tempestuous tenure there as head coach.
I don't know if the league will give it to him, but Flores deserves another crack at a head coaching gig. For as long as he doesn't get it, the Vikings will be huge beneficiaries.
9. Miami Dolphins
Head coach: Mike McDaniel
Offensive coordinator: Frank Smith
Defensive coordinator: Anthony Weaver
McDaniel is the author of the greatest miracle in football over the past few years: turning Tua Tagovailoa from a "We can kinda get a decent offense on the field with this guy" to "We are setting records with this guy" overnight. The acquisition of Tyreek Hill was an enormous part of the leap, of course, but what McDaniel has done with Tagovailoa is more impressive than what Sean McVay did for Jared Goff or Kyle Shanahan did for Jimmy Garoppolo. This is the greatest schematic lifting of a quarterback we've ever seen from this offense.
It is only because I hold McDaniel in such high esteem that the Dolphins make it this high in the rankings. Weaver is a first-time defensive coordinator about whom we know little, and he's stepping into interesting shoes. He is McDaniel's third defensive coordinator in three seasons, as Vic Fangio left Miami on less-than-great terms with his players. I like what I've seen and heard from Weaver, and he has some good players on the roster, so I have cautious optimism here.
What I really need to see from the Dolphins is a better plan for a long postseason run. They have been hot out the gates in each of McDaniel's first two seasons. They went 8-3 in 2022 before dropping four straight; then Tagovailoa got hurt, and they went 1-2 before losing in the postseason. In 2023, with their quarterback healthy the whole way, they were 11-4 before dropping the last two games in the regular season, handing the division to the Bills and losing again in the wild-card round.
Look at the offense's metrics broken down by month in all of Tagovailoa's starts under McDaniel. Once the weather gets a little colder, and critically, once a few smart defenses put some film out on defending this offense, the wind falls from its sails. What McDaniel does as an offensive designer is nothing short of revolutionary, but he needs to have more wrinkles hidden in a deeper bag to ensure his offense stays ahead of the curve late in the season.
8. Green Bay Packers
Head coach: Matt LaFleur
Offensive coordinator: Adam Stenavich
Defensive coordinator: Jeff Hafley
At 56-27 (.675), LaFleur has the 11th-best win-loss percentage in NFL history. Only Jim Harbaugh (.695 in four seasons with the 49ers) is better than him in the 21st century. LaFleur's regular-season success was more of a fun novelty than a meaningful achievement when all of his wins came with Aaron Rodgers at the helm. Now that he has successfully launched the career of Jordan Love, it's easier to see just how much value he brings.
It is very hard to do what LaFleur did last season: win with youth. The Packers' snap-weighted age on offense was 24.6, the youngest in the league, and their offense was riddled with mental and situational mistakes early in the season. But they rallied, never lost confidence and improved. When they beat the Cowboys in the wild-card round, they became the youngest team to win a playoff game since the merger (1970). Think about how many young teams you've seen let the lights get too bright for them -- LaFleur's Packers got the job done as 7.5-point underdogs on the road.
Of course, the defense came back to bite them again in the postseason (and again against those pesky 49ers, who have handed LaFleur three of his four playoff losses). So Joe Barry is out and Jeff Hafley, the former Boston College coach who made headlines by jumping to the league for a coordinator position, is in.
I am always suspicious of college coaches finding success in the league. The geometry of the field, the speed of the players, the way the quarterbacks win -- it seems like the same game as the college ranks, but it's really a different beast entirely. I am willing to believe in Hafley, though, for two reasons: his experience in the league (2012-18), and the unbelievably low bar left for him by Barry.
Another big feather in LaFleur's cap? He has historically made the good fourth-down decisions -- better than those of Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan, his contemporaries who are rightfully dinged for their trepidation. (Just don't look at the timeout usage.) And how about a feather in the cap of Stenavich, who was first the offensive line coach in Green Bay before ascending to the coordinator role. The Packers' offensive line seems to always have a next man up, adjusting for injury better than any group in the league.
7. Pittsburgh Steelers
Head coach: Mike Tomlin
Offensive coordinator: Arthur Smith
Defensive coordinator: Teryl Austin
Without question, this is the most difficult team to place. I am positive Tomlin is a good head coach. Nobody in the league squeezes more blood from tougher stones than Tomlin, who has somehow not had a losing season during the worst quarterback carousel I can ever remember: late-career chuck-and-duck Ben Roethlisberger, backups Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges splitting time and resounding first-round bust Kenny Pickett spelled by Mitchell Trubisky. Much Tomlin criticism is just incognito praise. Yes, the Steelers have lost their past five playoff games (bad), but the fact they've made it to the playoffs with these preposterously bad offenses is a testament to Tomlin (good).
How much credit can you dole out to the head coach for enduring this nightmare when he is, in part, at fault for authoring it? Tomlin, who has a defensive background, has struggled to find a good offensive coordinator. His past few attempts: Matt Canada, Randy Fichtner, Todd Haley. No wonder they haven't developed a quarterback yet. And if you can't find a way to get a good offense onto the field -- whether with a big quarterback move, a big coaching move, or both -- your ceiling is capped as an NFL coach.
I don't love the quarterback room, but I do think Smith is a good offensive coordinator. His time as a head coach in Atlanta was marred with bad personnel management and horrible situational football, but as an offensive coach? Let's not forget the 2020 Titans' offense that produced the fifth-best season (by expected points added per play) since 2000. Smith's offenses excel in the running game, where Pittsburgh is already built for strength, and a heavy dose of play-action pass helps lift shaky quarterbacks. I like him and Austin, who has produced two over-performing defenses in two seasons as the defensive coordinator in Pittsburgh. This is a strong staff.
6. Houston Texans
Head coach: DeMeco Ryans
Offensive coordinator: Bobby Slowik
Defensive coordinator: Matt Burke
When Chip Kelly was still a coach in the league, he was asked which of his ex-players would be a future head coach, and he said Ryans. Then, a few years later, he said, "It wouldn't surprise me if DeMeco became president." I think about that line a lot, because it wouldn't surprise me if Ryans was the best head coach in football in, like, 10 years.
This is probably too high for the Texans to be ranked, but I cannot overstate my belief in Ryans. Kelly isn't the only guy to tag Ryans as a future head coach; Kyle Shanahan predicted it when he made Ryans a defensive coordinator in 2021 despite Ryans' measly four years of coaching experience. Ryans' teammates at Alabama just straight called him "Coach." This guy has had it since Day 1, and everyone who meets him feels it and believes it. Just watch the effort with which a Ryans-coached defense plays, and you'll get it, too.
Louis Riddick heaps praise on Houston Texans coach DeMeco Ryans, insisting he'll be remembered for a long time in the NFL.
His Year 1 impact on the team was immediate. Young players everywhere got better: Nico Collins, Derek Stingley Jr., Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman. Rookies found early success: C.J. Stroud, Tank Dell, Christian Harris, Will Anderson Jr. First-year offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik found success as well, deploying a traditional Shanahan-inspired passing attack that succeeded despite a lackluster running game and a devastating injury carousel along the offensive line.
Slowik's Year 2 improvements are important. He's a good offensive coordinator, but teams will be preparing for Stroud a little differently this season, and the running game must be more reliable to keep Stroud's downfield, play-action dominance where it was last season. But even in 2023, the Texans started to ramp up the early-down-pass heaviness as Stroud proved he could handle it. I'm confident this is a smart staff deserving of a lofty ranking.
5. Baltimore Ravens
Head coach: John Harbaugh
Offensive coordinator: Todd Monken
Defensive coordinator: Zach Orr
Oh, how badly I wanted to put the Ravens above the 49ers and the Rams. If I had certainty in the state of the defensive coaching staff, they'd easily be No. 3, maybe even No. 2. But the defensive brain drain is difficult to ignore: Coordinator Mike Macdonald, line coach Anthony Weaver and secondary coach Dennard Wilson all left the franchise this offseason. That's as big of a change of any team.
Now, if there's a head coach I trust to shepherd his team through the change, it's Harbaugh. The Ravens flipped their offense from Greg Roman's system to Monken's last offseason. Those two are about as different as it gets, and the personnel wasn't even right for Monken's preferred approach -- they didn't have the talent at wide receiver. Yet the Ravens still ranked in the top five in expected points added per play and success rate on offense, as Lamar Jackson produced a second MVP season.
The success is important, but the nature of it is what gives me faith: The Ravens were far from perfect early in the season, but they got better week over week, changing the offense and smoothing over the rough edges even as they lost key players to injury (Mark Andrews, J.K. Dobbins, Ronnie Stanley). Monken and Harbaugh produced one of the best coaching jobs last season, and you barely hear it discussed.
This is why I believe in the defense, even despite the departures. Harbaugh has proved he can adjust his staff and philosophy successfully (see: transition from Wink Martindale to Macdonald in 2022). He's also one of the league's preeminent game managers, which minimizes the impact of those early bumps in coaching transitions. I gave the Lions the nod for the strength of the staff across the board, but if you made me pick just one "CEO" coach with whom to start my franchise, I would take Harbaugh over Campbell and the rest of the field.
4. San Francisco 49ers
Head coach: Kyle Shanahan
Offensive coordinator: none
Defensive coordinator: Nick Sorensen
I don't know much about Sorensen. Shanahan has a proven history in identifying rising defensive talent (Robert Saleh, DeMeco Ryans), so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt here. But if we make Sorensen to largely be a question mark, and if we make having no offensive coordinator to also be a question mark (seems fair), then we're ranking the San Francisco coaching staff almost exclusively on the quality of Shanahan as a head coach.
So he comes in fourth overall.
Maybe this is too rich. Shanahan's issues with game management are well documented. He is one of the most cautious coaches in an increasingly aggressive league; he regularly sits on the ball at the end of the first half, settling for long field goal attempts for fear of any negative plays. He attempts field goals on fourth-and-shorts that every other coach is going for. He manages the game like a coach with the best defense and the worst offense, which is funny, because he literally always has the best offense.
And that's the rub: He always has the best offense. This is an offense-driven league, and I simply cannot knock the guy who took the last pick in the 2022 draft and produced a better offense with him than the Chiefs have had with Patrick Mahomes. Shanahan did more than create the defining offense in the current NFL -- he has iterated on it. Of all the offenses he has coached, the 2023 49ers were second only to his 2016 Falcons offense in points per drive and expected points added per play; they were actually better by success rate. This while moving away from the under center, play-action offense he popularized. With Shanahan at the helm, the 49ers are all but guaranteed a contending offense, even with a Jimmy Garoppolo or Brock Purdy at quarterback. For as much as I love John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin, I can't come close to saying that about either guy.
So, yes, Shanahan isn't the best drafter in the world. (Please take the picks away from him, John Lynch.) Yes, he puts young players in the doghouse too often. Yes, he doesn't even have a ring yet. But he is so good that he alone is one of the four best staffs in football.
3. Los Angeles Rams
Head coach: Sean McVay
Offensive coordinator: Mike LaFleur
Defensive coordinator: Chris Shula
McVay's Rams would make a strong case for a top-two slot if former defensive coordinator Raheem Morris were still around, but you could put Ben Solak in at defensive coordinator, and it'd be hard to drop the Rams much lower than No. 3.
McVay's arc as the Rams' coach has been eventful and illuminating. An offensive whiz kid who looked unstoppable until he crashed into Bill Belichick's defense in Super Bowl LIII, he has gone through a self-documented evolution as a coach and as an individual. The L.A. offense has changed schematically, casting away the outside zone runs of yesteryear for a more physical, downhill approach. Quarterback Matthew Stafford has allowed McVay to get deep in his bag of shotgun passes, which McVay has done with aplomb. The system he runs now is not the system that got him hired and got him famous in the late 2010s.
That personal growth and emotional intelligence is a key factor when differentiating McVay from his contemporary, Kyle Shanahan. It's a matter of inches, but I think Shanahan is the slightly better offensive mind -- but McVay seems to get along better with his players and lets his personnel department work for him, which produces a better team overall. It's not fair to say Stafford chose Los Angeles over San Francisco because he favored McVay over Shanahan, but the fact of the matter is McVay got Stafford into the building and has the hardware to show for it.
The keys of the defense now belong to Shula, McVay's teammate from his Miami (Ohio) college days. I am always suspicious of hires with a nepotistic tint, but McVay hired Shula the year he became the Rams' coach, and Shula has spent seven seasons working his way up to this role. It was not handed to him for free -- in fact, he's McVay's first ever internal promotion to a coordinator position (along with LaFleur). Shula's time under Wade Phillips, Brandon Staley and Morris gives him a wide range of influences, and I'm fascinated to see what the Rams' defensive identity becomes under him (without Aaron Donald on the field).
2. Detroit Lions
Head coach: Dan Campbell
Offensive coordinator: Ben Johnson
Defensive coordinator: Aaron Glenn
There's not a single thing Campbell doesn't do right. He has been consistently correct on fourth-down and 2-point decisions. Perhaps more importantly, his team is behind him when he makes judgment calls on 50-50 calls, as he had to do in the NFC Championship Game loss last season. That's culture right there.
Culture works in other ways, too. A lot of young players have earned reps and blossomed in Detroit over Campbell's tenure. Amon-Ra St. Brown, a fourth-round rookie on the floundering 2021 team, is the best example: He worked his way into the slot job and has become one of the best receivers in the league a few seasons later. Ifeatu Melifonwu, who had all the makings of a bust, was a critical player late last season as the lightbulb finally clicked for the safety. It's hard to build a locker room of faith and patience like that, and Campbell has done it expertly.
The "Get Up" crew praise the Lions' offseason additions and wonder whether Detroit's past successes can propel the team to a Super Bowl appearance this season.
Some of Campbell's best decisions look obvious in hindsight, but it's easy to forget how bold they were at the time. Bumping Penei Sewell, an elite left tackle in college, to right tackle is the sort of thing lesser players and lesser coaching staffs mess up. Firing an established offensive coach in Anthony Lynn to promote Ben Johnson -- an unknown coach with no playcalling experience -- to offensive coordinator was the move that saved Jared Goff's career.
Let's talk about Johnson, who is probably the best offensive coordinator on this list. Detroit's offense has been a top-10 unit by DVOA and expected points added in each of the past two seasons, and he has received several head-coaching interviews accordingly. This with a quarterback who the Rams had to pay the Lions to take on; with a receiver room perilously thin behind St. Brown; without a single splashy free agent addition save for ... David Montgomery? As non-head-coach playcallers go, Johnson is the best in the business.
And on the other side of the ball? Glenn was voted as the top-ranked coordinator in the league by the NFLPA last season. The metrics of the Detroit defense aren't as good as the offense, but they took a huge step forward in run defense last season. With a revamped cornerback room, the coverage should catch up.
1. Kansas City Chiefs
Head coach: Andy Reid
Offensive coordinator: Matt Nagy
Defensive coordinator: Steve Spagnuolo
It's a little too easy to say, "The Chiefs have won back-to-back Super Bowls, so they're the best coaching staff," but sometimes it's that simple: The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
The Chiefs take the pole position not just because of their offensive dominance -- a lot of coaches are perennially producing a top offense, and most of those teams don't have Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. It's their work on the defensive side of the ball that truly impresses.
Spagnuolo has earned his reputation as a gnarly game planner and shrewd developer of talent. Of the 12 players to take at least 300 snaps in the back seven last season, the only players not drafted and developed during Spagnuolo's tenure were Drue Tranquill, Justin Reid and Mike Edwards. It's one thing to get youth on the field, but it's another thing to run as complex and aggressive coverages as Spags runs, with that youth on the field.
As a testament to his investment in young players, and in his ability to build custom game plans, the Kansas City defense consistently delivers in the playoffs. It faced a gauntlet of offenses last postseason -- the Dolphins, Bills, Ravens and 49ers. Here's how those offenses fared by expected points added per play and success rate against the Chiefs.
The rest is self-evident. Reid has been one of the league's best offensive minds since the early 2000s, which is an unparalleled level of longevity, and while his clock management isn't perfect, it's far improved from the days it was a meme-worthy Achilles heel.